It was my first (and last?) visit to Vera Playa this week, and I’m writing more than anything else to see if the process clarifies my thoughts any… It’s been a mixed bag, but I can’t work out if that’s Vera, social phobia, searing heat, Spanish (of which I have none), vegetarianism, beach holidays not really being me, or what.
Perhaps the first episode of a tangential-Vera experience was getting into the airport shuttle with another couple who were going somewhere else along the route. She asked where I was headed and when I said Vera Playa he said “probably going to the nudist beach eh?! Nudge nudge!” It was fine I suppose. I just grunted something non-committal (which of course I regretted for the rest of the journey, fantasising about making the case for naturism to this captive audience. I stared… out… the window…)
The shuttle dropped me at the Consum (supermarket) and I was starving so went straight in there and immediately of course had to navigate Spanish and how the Spanish diet doesn’t intersect easily with vegetarianism. (None of this is either a biggy or a surprise but, remember, I’m live-sorting through my experience…) Lunch: mystery chocolate snack-thing and orange juice.
Then I dragged my wheelie-suitcase over the exclusively cobbled* pavements to the Airbnb, feeling very much like a tourist, and a noise nuisance, past the recently and barely scrubbed-off ‘TOURISTS GO HOME’ graffiti. It was a ten-minute walk and I saw very few other people, and the majority of those were clothed. It was about 3pm. It’s probably not HIGH season, but it’s not OFF-season so I was somewhat surprised by the number of people. Probably siesta was a factor, I dunno. The proportion of clothed to unclothed was a surprise, but I suspect that was related to reality crashing headlong into my secret fantasy that Vera would be a naturist Eden. Anyway, there were enough nudies to not dent my confidence so I got to the apartment, made a better lunch, stripped off, packed a wrap, and went exploring.
Found the beach. It wasn’t hard, though my first try resulted in failure because it involved seemingly walking through a restaurant (Paso Doble) and out the other side, though I should have just done it. On later trips I went this way, but on this occasion I backtracked and found a more traditional route (emerging at El Pirata).
Then turned left.
This turned out to be an error for the uninitiated. I felt confident walking towards and slightly past the Playa Vera Hotel since obviously that’s a big naturist hub, but then the naturist ‘zone’ (as it’s optimistically but unhelpful referred to because, like the UK, you can be naked anywhere and… this is a beach, right?!) petered out. I wasn’t going to chicken out that early though, so I pressed on up the beach although, out of respect to the textile beach goers, I walked up the back of the beach rather than parading past everybody. It looked like a nice walk, eventually being under trees and ending at a satisfying headland before turning around.
I didn’t get that far though. Before hitting the trees an old Spaniard saw fit to drive up next to me (I was at the car park before the trees) and shout loudly and angrily in my direction. I only had the friendly non-Spanish speaker card to play so I did. It didn’t go well, particularly when I amiably leant on his car to see if he had a translate app on his phone! (And, I wasn’t using my phone to enable his tirade…) Ultimately he began jabbing at his phone to call someone so I gave up, wrapped up, and turned around.
I knew he was an angry reactionary arse with a, probably long-standing and possibly well-founded, chip on his shoulder and I was a visitor with an hour in town under my belt and a vague sense that I was chancing my arm so I did a reasonable job of taking it on the chin and not allowing it to get under my skin, but it didn’t contribute usefully to the aggregate experience so far.
It’s been a week now as I write this and paradoxically I think I’ve thought more about uncovering or covering up while out and about here than anywhere else I’ve ever been, including non-naturist UK beaches, hikes alone and hikes in naturist groups.
I’d bought pasta so ate in that night, then walked the beach; noticing how many single males were walking up and down the shore and onto whom I projected all manner of judgements and assumptions before (and after…) noticing that I too was a single male walking up and down the shore.
It was hot. 43° at one point.
For the next few days I mostly sheltered from the heat under the apartment’s parasol on the terrace, unless it was early morning or evening, ruminating unhelpfully about how I knew I’d find it difficult here by myself and conducting thought-experiments about my self-imposed isolation that were intended to resolve that isolation while simultaneously contributing to it. Nevertheless I was a Big Boy and did go find restaurants in which to eat for the remaining days, although mostly those meals were at the very non-Spanish time of 7pm. Because I was tired. Because it was hot.
I went to the beach a bit, but sitting there for any length of time felt silly given how much easier it was to regulate temperature and not burn on the terrace. So I’d walk there, swim a bit, and return home. This is not a successful strategy to resolve loneliness.
I wondered if I ought to have taken the hotel option. More likely to meet people there. But much worse if you don’t…
Can you walk through the Playa Vera Hotel from the road to the beach if you are not a resident? It certainly doesn’t look like it, and I’d be surprised if you can. Assuming you may not, the many nice-looking cafés and bars on the road outside the hotel are sort-of inaccessible because they require a boring trudge past two long fences next to building work there and back and why would you when there are (fewer but more pleasantly accessible) alternatives down the beach..? They look fine but none of them look nicer-enough to be worth the commute, even though they might number half of the total options around town.
Incidentally, beachward, Café Paso Doble has a set menu, but no indication of what that actually is. Weird. (Remember sentence number 2, above….) Shame cos it looks nice and is a) cool and b) naturist.
Mrs Cromwell joined me for the final three days and of course that solved the ridiculously poorly-managed holiday-alone scenario.
All of this is not to say I won’t return. Possibly with some perspective after getting home I might retrospectively have enjoyed Vera more than I think I have. Does that make ANY sense?! I think I need more clarity (I might try Euronat?) But also, I think I struggle to sit still. On NatRam walks, when we stop for lunch or tea I am solely and exclusively waiting for that hiatus to be over.
It’s probably me.
*Not cobbled really. Those angular bricks they use sometimes.
